


Envy and Achievement

by TottWriter



Category: Digimon Adventure
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 04:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9055045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TottWriter/pseuds/TottWriter
Summary: On the whole, Jou felt, Gomamon had believed in him a lot more than he believed in himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for keyforshort as part of the Digimon Secret Santa event 2016!
> 
> Note: It _does_ reference the events of Tri, but only in the absolute vaguest sense, and I am basically glossing over it as much as possible because frankly I have no idea what's going to happen.

Sometimes, Jou really envied Taichi.

It didn’t happen often, and perhaps it wasn’t exactly envy in the truest sense of the word, but there was no denying that, of the two of them, Taichi seemed to be getting a lot more by way of enjoyment out of his school years. While Jou spent each and every holiday in cram school, holed up come rain or shine, Taichi was still firing off invitations to his soccer games and, inevitably, to celebratory/commiseration-esque gatherings afterwards. While Jou spent a steadily growing proportion of his time working harder and harder for grades which only ever seemed to fall, Taichi—although admittedly he barely had time to see any of the others once his medical studies really took off—seemed to be exactly as relaxed and laid back as he had ever been.

Yamato had his band practise (and a surprisingly large amount of studying outside that, all things considered); Sora always seemed to be busy planning this or that, or helping her parents; Koushiro…well, he emerged from time to time, distracted as ever, which was honestly all that anyone could hope for, and Takeru and Hikari and the others were young yet, without the same stresses on their time. But Taichi…if anything, he seemed to be less burdened by life than even they were. (Mimi, Jou reasoned, didn’t count. Since moving to America, she’d more or less dropped off of his radar except for the vague knowledge that she had far more free time than _anyone_ deserved thanks to America’s radically different educational system.)

All of them messaged him on a semi-regular basis. None of them got any replies, because couldn’t they tell that he was busy? He didn’t have time to waste on gatherings or day trips. Perhaps their goals were more relaxed, but if he was going to be a doctor then he could socialise later. Could enjoy himself later. Could rest later, in that mythical, far-off future where his life didn’t revolve around textbooks and exams.

Bit by bit, they had gotten the message. And then, apparently, the digital world had too.

 

* * *

  

To begin with, he told himself that life was easier without Gomamon. Well, that was a lie he was never going to believe, much as he often said it aloud. The truth was that it got a lot harder to focus. And that in itself was strange in a way, because he’d never really made all that much time for his partner in the first place. Certainly he’d had textbooks with him half the time when they _had_ seen each other. But it had been nice, all the same. Gomamon had never doubted him, not from the very beginning.

On the whole, Jou felt, Gomamon had believed in him a lot more than he believed in himself.

But he adapted, not least because there really wasn’t anything else to be done about it all. The digital world remained firmly closed, and if even Koushiro wasn’t able to make contact, then clearly the rest of them weren’t going to have any luck. And there _wasn’t time_ to worry, there really wasn’t. If he allowed himself to dwell on it, then he’d only fall further behind than he already seemed to be getting.

In the back of his mind, set firmly against his vocal assertions that he was coping just fine with the absence of the digital world and his partner, was the nagging worry of what would happen if their partners came back and he had _failed_. Gomamon was the only one who had ever completely believed in his ambitions. The only one who hadn’t doubted him, whether from an academic standpoint or even a practical one. He’d always just calmly assumed that Jou could do whatever he wanted to do, and seeing as Jou had said he wanted to be a doctor, that’s what Gomamon asserted he would be.

How could he let his partner down? How could he live with himself if they ever _did_ manage to contact the digital world again, and he had to explain to Gomamon that he hadn’t been good enough?

Weeks turned to months. His final year of high school rolled around; test upon test awaited him, and the pressure began to wear him down. He tried not to think of his partner. Tried to ignore the memory of that unceasing support. If he let those thoughts back in, after what became a year without word from the digital world at all, they wouldn’t just remain a lonely ache, or fear of letting Gomamon down. The more time went by, the more it seemed that it had just been a phase in his life which had ended. The chance to have his partner with him. The chance to leave school and tests behind and go wander another world—those were things he could no longer have. Those were things the adult world would not _let_ him have.

Those were things which no one else had ever had anyway, and they all seemed to manage.

Those were things which the other former Chosen Children all managed without quite well enough, too.

Which brought him back to Taichi, and his eternal not-exactly-envy (because that made it sound incredibly petty, although it did also describe his emotions perfectly if he were actually honest with himself—which was more or less why he tried not to be). Even without Agumon there as to act as the relentless Taichi-echo he always managed to be, their former leader seemed to be coping just _fine_. So far as Jou could tell, soccer continued much as it always had, as did the semi-regular and always ignored invitations to his matches.

Taichi had laughed and joked his way through most of their adventures, then casually handed off the responsibility to Daisuke when the moment arose and carried on with his life as though there had been no interruption at all, partner or no partner. At their increasingly uncommon gatherings—which in the wake of the digital world kicking them out had dwindled to a halfway organised meeting on the 1st day in August and a somewhat more haphazard gathering around Christmas—he was all smiles.

The Christmas gathering in particular had been a disaster. Burdened by the thought of his imminent final year at High School, Jou had turned up with his textbooks and spent the evening cramming for the next round of tests. It was lonely without Gomamon there to tell him to put them down and socialise, and he looked busy enough that no one else disturbed him. But really, what else was he going to do? He told himself afterwards that it had been a _good_ thing not to be interrupted.

Besides, the memory of Gomamon’s faith in him chafed at his falling grades. If he wanted to be a doctor he didn’t have _time_ for parties. If he wanted to continue down that path he couldn’t afford to put the books down—not even when the words on the pages before him began to dance around the page, and he fell into a downward spiral which all the studying in the world didn’t seem to help him out of.

_Knuckle down_ , he told himself. _Focus_.

Don’t think about the empty space left by his partner. Don’t admit there’s a problem, and perhaps one day there won’t be. One day he’ll be a doctor; capable and competent. Helping people. Doing good. Making a _difference_ , just the way he promised a small, white bundle of fluff and sarcasm who was the only person who ever _believed_ in him wholeheartedly. After all, it hadn’t felt like pressure until Gomamon’s cheerful encouragement lived on only in his mind as memories. Until the march of time warped those words and mingled them with the disappointment in his parents’ eyes as he slipped further and further.

And then time stopped when a faint tap at his window made those memories real once more.

 

* * *

  

…Except that was how it was _supposed_ to go, not how life really worked out. His schoolwork wasn’t magically easier, and he was older now—all too aware that the future wouldn’t wait for him if he stopped studying to meeting up with the others. The digital world had been quiet for so long; why did it have to pick that moment to try and drag him back in? He had exams, and it wasn’t that he being a chosen child was unimportant, but surely they had to understand that he had other things which he needed to do as well?

Jou was glad to have Gomamon back (he wasn’t about to admit just _how_ much, although the good thing about Gomamon was that they’d never needed to say that sort of thing out loud anyway), but the reality of his partner living with him in the real world full-time was very different to seeing each other now and then. He’d forgotten how childlike digimon could be. How hard it had been to connect with his partner at first. How time and stress could build walls between people.

Not that the others had those walls. No, it was just him, locked in a room with textbooks, while the others slotted back into life as though nothing had changed at all. Calm and confident and collected, rising to the challenge which swept them all up again. Since when had destiny ever put in a moment’s thought for their futures?

It was worth it though; he knew that. He might have hated fighting—it went against everything he wanted for his life, after all—but there really _were_ some things worth fighting for. It was always worth fighting for lives and freedoms and the safety of worlds. It was worth fighting so that the battles would stop. So that he could go back to his studies again and try to pick up the pieces of his ambitions, with his partner by his side.

  
The thing was though—and this was the kicker, after everything—he knew deep down that he wasn’t going to cut it. Not in the way he wanted to. Not in the way his _parents_ wanted him to. And it hurt. He’d turned in his dream for the safety of the world and he couldn’t regret that but that didn’t take the sting out of the knowledge that he couldn’t do both.

 

* * *

 

Gomamon found him, sat at his desk staring down at a blank page.

“Hey, Jou, what’s wrong?”

There was no sense denying it. “I can’t do it. Be a doctor, I mean.”

It was awful to stare into Gomamon’s open, confused face, but not as awful as lying would have been.

“Sure you can! You’re a great doctor, Jou. You look after everyone all the time. Isn’t that what being a doctor is?”

Jou ground his teeth. “No! It’s not. You have to…you have to study to be a doctor; you _know_ that. It’s not as simple as just wanting it. No one’s going to _let_ me be a doctor unless I can pass these tests!”

“Well, _I’d_ let you be my doctor Jou,” Gomamon replied, apparently unfazed. “And—and everyone else would too! We all know how good you are at that stuff. Besides, you always said you wanted to help people. Isn’t that more important than tests? Just go be a doctor somewhere no one cares about those things.”

He froze, staring at his partner with his jaw somewhere halfway to the floor. That simple? Had it _always_ been that simple?

_No_ , he told himself. It really wasn’t simple at all. And it probably wouldn’t really work anyway. But it was true enough that there were more ways of being a doctor than just throwing himself blindly at schoolwork and tests. He might as well _look_ at them, mightn’t he?

 

* * *

  

There was a day. It wasn’t special. He couldn’t even remember, later, what he’d been doing at the time, when one of their halfway regular gatherings in the digital world had all but run out, and they were making their way home again.

Gomamon had insisted on carrying his doctor’s bag to ‘help’ him, although that meant it was currently dragging along the ground instead. Agumon and Tentomon were helping him help. Jou didn’t hold out much hope of the bag surviving the week.

Koushiro was in his own world again and hadn’t noticed, but Taichi shot him an amused grin as the tug of war worsened.

“You know, if you leave it much longer I think you’re going to have to get a new bag,” Taichi remarked. “I mean, sure, that way they’d probably learn not to do it again but, well…”

Jou smiled. “They’ll be fine. Gomamon often carries my bag around. He can keep it safe enough for now, and I’ve got plenty of spares at home. It’s something of an occupational hazard to be honest.”

Taichi laughed. “Ever prepared these days, eh?”

They walked in silence for a little while longer, watching as Gomamon managed to fend off the unwanted assistance and haughtily slung the bag onto his back. Thwarted, Agumon and Tentomon began to bicker with each other instead.

“You know, I always sort of envied you,” Taichi said as they reached the gate.

Jou stopped walking and stared at him. He had to have heard that wrong.

“ _Me?_ ”

“Well, maybe not at first…” Taichi replied, grinning. “You were a bit of a scaredy cat to begin with, I have to admit. But just generally…you always knew what you wanted to do, you know? And you stuck with it and made it work, and _now_ look at you. It all paid off. I mean, me? …Man, I had no idea what I was doing. Ha! I _still_ don’t know what I’m doing, some days.” He looked sidelong at Jou. “Don’t tell Yamato I said that, by the way. I’ll never hear the end of it. But yeah, I mean, you were always so…so _together_ , you know?”

The laugh rose up and escaped before he even realised what was happening. He couldn’t help it. It was as though something inside him—an invisible weight, there so long he’d stopped noticing it—had been released. The others all turned to stare at him. Even Koushiro appeared to have been startled out of his reverie.

“Jou?” Gomamon asked, watching as the man wiped tears from his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Jou smiled at him, reaching down to take the doctor’s bag. “You know what? I think I am.”

 


End file.
